The last news I had about the status of the bill of Copyright Law was that it was under discussion before the Interministerial Group of Intellectual Property, a natural step after the final draft of the bill was elaborated by the Ministry of Culture and before it is sent to the Civil House.

However, O Globo, one of the most important Brazilian newspapers published a curious article last Saturday, November 26, claiming that the bill was “secretly” sent to the Civil House by the end of October and that it is very similar to the bill developed by the prior Minister of Culture, Mr. Juca Oliveira. The article says the bill is 85% identical to the prior version but it does not provide many details about the changes that were made. Apparently, according to the bill Globo had access, the notice and takedown procedure for ISPs is kept in place, along with the “private copy” and a longer list of limitations to copyright owners. Further, the music collection society (ECAD) will be more closely monitored and controlled and there is authorization to create a similar collection society for the audiovisual sector. These and other changes were already very much expected and were already present in the last draft-bill.

It is a matter of waiting and seeing now because the actual text of the bill that was allegedly sent to the Civil House has not been released by the Ministry of Culture. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Culture has not yet made any official statement about this matter.

In view of all this, file this information under “rumor” for the moment and take it with a grain of salt.

However, this is not an announcement per se but rather a rebuttal of the article published in Folha de São Paulo which accuses the Ministry of Culture of favoring ECAD, the music public performance collection society. The interesting aspect to notice is that the Ministry of Culture does not acknowledge that Folha’s version of the pre-draft bill is the Ministry’s pre-draft bill. I can’t understand why the Ministry of Culture does not publish whatever version they sent to the Civil House. This “mistery” only creates animosities.